Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Big, bad, beautiful

Katie, Big and Strong: The True Story of the Mighty Woman Who Could Lift Anything by Jennifer Cooper and Jen White

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I thought I had read about Katie Brumbach more than my official record shows. But regardless, I had (though currently available) an online reader copy of  Katie, Big and Strong: The True Story of the Mighty Woman Who Could Lift Anything by Jennifer Cooper and Jen White (illustrator) and therefore, I can say I have read at least one.  I really can’t do this book justice for story, so I’ll take the publisher description: Even from a young age, Katie Brumbach was BIG and STRONG. […]

‘The Habsburgs were the first rulers whose power encompassed the world, and they achieved greatness by luck and by force.’

The Habsburgs: The Rise and Fall of a World Power by Martyn Rady

In The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World by Edward Shawcross

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For all the royal watching going on right now, its the British Royal Family that’s hugging the spotlight. And, really, how could they not? Liz the Second—who we all thought was destined to live forever—shockingly popped her clogs last year. And now her grandson seems to be taking his turn airing out the dirty laundry, much to people’s delight. But the lives of royals are always ripe for high drama, if you are into that kind of thing. So I’m going to ring in the […]

The depths of human nature

Terrible Faithfulness by Marlen Haushofer

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Marlen Haushofer is one of my absolute favourite authors and you cannot imagine how much it pains me that this never was translated into English. Her most famous novel, The Wall, did get translated, it got a so-so movie adaptation too, but her true strength lies in novellas and short stories. And you’re all missing out on this brilliant collection of short stories! She’s a true master of the field. I’m tagging this “horror” as well, even though they’re technically not horror stories. They’re stories […]

We’re all so f*cked

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig

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It took me ages to finish this book. Not because I had troubles reading it, the language in this is in fact incredibly fluid, I would even say that German prose hardly gets better than this. It took me so long because the dawning realisation that people don’t change, they don’t ever change, is a lot to bear. The sheer relatability of this upset me to the core and it should reach so many more people. The World of Yesterday is the memoir of Stefan […]

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…

Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by by Ulli Lust, translated by Kim Thompson

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TG: drug use, sexual assault, violence against women, mafia I’m not really sure I know how to review this book, but I am going to try anyway. Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life is a graphic novel memoir that narrates a specific period in the life of its author. In 1984, shortly before her 17th birthday, Ulli Lust, a rebellious punk girl from Vienna, took off on a hitchhiking trip across Italy with her friend Edi with nothing but a […]



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